The radical Hillary Clinton

[T_i_B]

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sasha_abramsky/2007/10/dispatch_from_oakland.html

Whatever her other assets, Hillary Clinton is never going to have the kind of effortless rapport with her audiences that Bill Clinton did with his. She'll work the crowds as the consummate professional that she is, but it'll always be to a script; she might get love, but it will be the love a party gives to winners rather than the swooning sort of unconditional adoration Bill could inspire in his audience members.

No, this event was interesting not because of the quality of the oratory but because a candidate as unapologetically middle-of-the-road as Hillary Clinton, a politician who has made a career "triangulating," is now tacking to the left. She is recreating herself as a no-nonsense populist, ready to ride into the halls of power as a saviour for the ordinary-Joes who've been hammered not just by seven years of Bush but by the unnuanced version of globalization (job exportation, downward pressures on the wages of low-skilled labour) championed by a certain Bill back in the 1990s.

Whatever the reasons, what it means is that the Democratic Party's frontrunner is helping to put center-stage issues that not too long ago would have been deemed major electoral liabilities. It used to be that candidates hummed and hawed when it came to proposing ways to bring all Americans under the health insurance umbrella. There were too many negatives associated with state-controlled agencies, with run-amok bureaucracies and so on. When Hillary Clinton, as first lady, presided over an ambitious universal healthcare plan in the mid-1990s, the plan was pilloried and died an excruciating death.

Nowadays, with over 45 million Americans and counting lacking health insurance, all the leading Democratic candidates are hawking their own particular versions of universal healthcare, and some, like Edwards, are openly calling for large tax increases (a politician in America daring to call for more taxes on the wealthy??!! Surely you're joking...). Similarly, politicians who a couple years back would have been guaranteed to oppose mandatory CO2 emissions controls and far-reaching long-term emissions reduction targets - fearful of alienating big business and being accused of undermining the American way of life - are now calling for entirely new energy policies and state-sponsored research and development around clean energy sources.

[aquart]

1. It's wrong to credit only the frontrunners.

The vocal edgemen, like Kucinich, play a large part in the tack left.

I doubt I will ever call Hillary radical, but her liberal voting record didn't suddenly just appear out of nowhere. People want to pretend she's rightwing, have fun. It is not now and never has been true.

[99th_Monkey]

2. If you guys keep this up

you might even convince me to vote for Hillary ... in the General that is.

this coming from a die-hard Kucinich voter in the primaries.

If it MUST be Hillary, then you must help me (and many others) better understand any and every stark difference
that may exist between a Gouliani Beast and a Hillary Beast in the WH.

[MethuenProgressive]

3. She's a stealth leftie!

Perhaps the Republicans have been a good for lesson something. They've long ran as conservatives and then governed as radical righties. They knew the 'trick' was to get elected first.

[sendero]

4. "tacking to the left"..

... what utter bullshit.